Jordan Strauss/Invision/APZosia Mamet is revealing her personal struggles with an eating disorder.
In an extremely personal column in the September issue of Glamour, the 26-year-old Girls star details her dramatic history with body image issues.
"I was told I was fat for the first time when I was eight," Mamet writes. "I'm not fat; I've never been fat. But ever since then, there has been a monster in my brain that tells me I am—that convinces me my clothes don't fit or that I've eaten too much. At times it has forced me to starve myself, to run extra miles, to abuse my body. As a teenager I used to stand in front of the refrigerator late at night staring into that white fluorescent light, debilitated by the war raging inside me: whether to give in to the pitted hunger in my stomach or close the door and go back to bed. I would stand there for hours, opening and closing the door, taking out a piece of food then putting it back in; taking it out, putting it in my mouth, and then spitting it into the garbage. I was only 17, living in misery, waiting to die."
"My dad eventually got me into treatment," she recounted. "He came home one night from a party, took me by the shoulders, and said, 'You're not allowed to die.' It was the first time I realized this wasn't all about me. I didn't care if I died, but my family did. That's the thing about these kinds of disorders: They're consuming; they make you egocentric; they're all you can see."
Mamet says even after getting treatment and gaining some weight, she was still obsessed with controlling her body and eating habits. It's still something she struggles with today.
"Today I'm at a healthy weight, though I realize that my obsession will always be with me in some way," she writes. "For years the voice inside me has gotten louder or quieter at times. It may never disappear completely, but hopefully one day it'll be so quiet, it'll only be a whisper and I'll wonder, 'Was that just the wind?'"